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Before you pay fifty bucks for a box of Twinkies on eBay, read this. Twinkies may be on life support, but they haven’t flatlined yet.
Hostess Brands and its labor unions have agreed to a mediation session to see if they can agree on anything. At stake? 18,500 jobs, of which 5,000 are bakers represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.
According to USA Today,
U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge Robert Drain cited “serious questions”
about the motives of the above-mentioned union to reject the company’s
last contract offer, while U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee Tracy Hope Davis
filed a motion, criticizing the provisions that would “grant bonuses to
insiders” and “cherry-pick” which administrative claims to pay.
As part
of their end-game strategy, Hostess Brands asked permission of the court
last Friday to cease all operations. The motion included a provision to
“create a bonus pay plan for 19 corporate officers and high-level
managers and some non-senior employees who would carry out the
shutdown”, while leaving thousands of workers without jobs right before
Thanksgiving.
If negotiations fall through between Hostess Brands
and the union, one company has already expressed interest in the baked
goods company.
Though it may sound like a college fraternity
fantasy, the owners of hipster-trendy Pabst Blue Ribbon is interested in
buying the Twinkies name and recipe.
According to Bloomberg,
the private equity company that owns the iconic beer has showed an
interest in purchasing Hostess and its snacks. Daren Metropoulos, a
principal at C. Dean Metropoulos & Co., has said, “Our family would
love to purchase these iconic brands.” The company specializes in
turning around once-successful brands like Chef Boy-R-Dee, Bumblebee
Tuna and, most recently, Pabst Blue Ribbon, which it purchased in 2010
for $250 million.
Seems like Twinkies, in some form or another, do have the staying power that movies like Wall-E claim they do.
Follow Laine Doss on Twitter @LaineDoss and Facebook.
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